Pupils should receive lessons as part of the national curriculum on how to avoid being targeted by gangs and older criminals, the children’s commissioner has said.

Anne Longfield said the lessons were needed to reduce the number of “horrific situations” where children and young people get exploited by gangs.

The comments follow a story in The Times yesterday that thousands of young children and teenagers are being paid by criminals to hide or launder stolen money in their bank accounts.

The number of youths used as “money mules” in this way has nearly doubled in a year.

Speaking to Radio 5 Live this morning, Ms Longfield said children being caught up in gangs was an “extremely serious” problem, with as many as 46,000 involved in gangs, including some as young as ten. She said the issue of children being used as “money mules” was part of a wider problem, with young people also being “involved in and transporting drugs”.

Children were being drawn to gangs by the prospect of “fast money”, protection and “sometimes glamour”, she said.

Ms Longfield also said she had heard “anecdotally’ that middle class children are being increasingly targeted by gangs “because they are less likely to be stopped”.

“I want to reduce these numbers because these are horrific situations that children and young people are getting themselves into,” she said.

“I want as part of new planned life skills lessons for children to learn more about the dangers of gangs and to understand when they’re being targeted and being able to spot that better.” She said the lessons would also help children “build their resilience”.

Ms Longfield said she had asked the government to ensure the new lessons take place.

When asked whether it was right to burden schools with this extra responsibility, she said it was “an important part of school” to prepare children for adult life.

Ms Longfield said that while many schools are already teaching life skills, provision is “inconsistent” and often they don’t deal with issues such as gangs “which are much harder to tackle”.

She also called for the police to collect “better data” on the exploitation of children by gangs, and for forces in different parts of the country to work more closely together to combat the problem.

In an interview with Tes earlier this summer, Ms Longfield said she wanted to focus the rest of her six-year tenure as children commissioner on preventing vulnerable children ‘falling through the gaps’.